Meet School Night, Dogpatch’s weeknight-only bar

1of5School Night in Dogpatch is a neighborhood bar most nights of the week but turns into an event space Thursday-Saturday.Photo: Photos by Rosa Furneaux / Special to The Chronicle

2of5Patrons at School Night, a new bar in Dogpatch.Photo: Rosa Furneaux / Special to The Chronicle

3of5The Mr. Kotter cocktail at School Night in Dogpatch.Photo: Rosa Furneaux / Special to The Chronicle

4of5A Principal’s Punch at School Night.Photo: Rosa Furneaux / Special to The Chronicle

5of5Traci des Jardins is behind the Peruvian- and Mexican-inspired food offerings.Photo: Rosa Furneaux / Special to The Chronicle

When I look around School Night, I wonder if I’m looking at the future of bars and restaurants in San Francisco.

The bar, which recently opened as part of an event-space complex called the Pearl on 19th Street, is just off the main drag in Dogpatch. There’s active construction in pretty much every direction, and School Night hasn’t quite shaken that converted-boiler-shop look. The soaring ceilings and endless walls are all dark paint and mirrors; widely spaced high-top tables and wood-and-metal rectangular booths add more sharp corners.

It feels more modular than glamorous, like a housewarming party in someone’s new loft apartment.

This is Wednesday, and the room is lively.

Come Thursday, though, the bar is closed. And Friday and Saturday, too.

So what happens to School Night on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, plus daytime hours? It’s an events venue.

But right now it’s a friendly party: Parents park strollers in between barstools. Cooks from neighboring restaurants stop by for a 10 p.m. bite. I run into my dance teacher, who’s just finished leading a workout over at AT&T Park, then spot an old friend who works at UCSF. He’s drinking bar director Enrique Sanchez’s savory Tequila-based martini out of a Nick and Nora glass; his boyfriend likes the smoky old fashioned.

The saying goes that the easiest way to make a small fortune is to take a large fortune and then open a restaurant. In San Francisco, the same may be true for bars. When you add up the investment necessary for a liquor license (usually more than $300,000), endless permitting, rent, buildout and delays, followed by staffing and PR, all before you have any idea how many customers are going to walk in the door — you’re in deep.

Traci Des Jardins, the chef-restaurateur who dreamed up School Night’s Peruvian- and Mexican-inspired food offerings, believes the standard model is broken.

“Twenty years ago, when we opened Jardinière,” she says, “in a white-tablecloth restaurant, you’d spend about 30 percent for cost of goods, 30 percent on labor and 30 percent on everything else, so you’d profit 10 to 15 percent.” Due to rising labor costs, including a higher minimum wage, she says, the profit is now more like 3 to 7 percent industry-wide.

In a traditional restaurant or bar, you’re always wondering, “Are we gonna be slammed tonight, or be half full?” says managing partner Adam Mendelson. But you have to plan for the former, in terms of both staff and supplies. “If you get slammed and provide bad service, people aren’t going to come back,” Mendelson says.

Mendelson’s strategy: decrease uncertainty. Whereas other restaurants are looking at counter service or delivery to survive, “we’re booking events sometimes 24 months in advance, and can staff accordingly,” he says. That means he’s not just running a hospitality business; he’s running a real estate business, too. “But because you can predict the demand, you turn the hospitality equation on its head.”

Mendelson is upfront about the fact that School Night is a play for attention, to bring into the space people who otherwise might not know about the Pearl. Even if the profit is in events, the parts of the business that are open to the public are fundamentally more sexy, and might generate future event bookings.

It’s a clever survival technique that will work only if people like the bar.

And School Night is likable enough, though neither the food nor drinks are breaking new ground. Des Jardins says the menu reflects the kind of simple dishes she serves her family and dinner-party guests. While she employs a full-time butcher at Jardinère, School Night’s food is less prep-intensive: for instance, pureed, cooked salsas ($6, served with sturdy chips), which have a longer shelf life and require less knifework than, say, pico de gallo.

The gingery Peruvian-style cebiche ($13), adorned with corn nuts, chiles and cilantro, is the ideal vibrant and spicy starter. Two can share the queso fundido ($16), a bubbling inferno of chorizo and three cheeses in a little Staub gratin. It’s served alongside a basket of steaming La Palma flour tortillas, which remind Des Jardins of the lard-enriched versions her grandmother made.

There are a few delightful surprises: While run-of-the-mill fried potatoes would have done the job, School Night’s fork and knife-required version ($12) dazzles. The potatoes are confited in duck fat, then smashed and fried until crackling and tossed with crema and a puree of guajillo peppers and roasted garlic. And while I wouldn’t expect most bars to be able pull off fideos ($17), a paella-like seafood pasta, School Night does it with aplomb. Tender clams and mussels pop open in the kitchen’s stand-alone woodburning oven, then join with a little dashi to imbue the delicate butter-toasted pasta with their briny essence.

It all goes nicely with a few rounds of Sanchez’s cocktails (all $12). To help you choose, there’s a CliffsNotes version of the menu posted up above the bar. But you should skim the longer booklet, time permitting, since it shares detailed descriptions of the ingredients and stories behind each drink, plus extensive spirits lists, including 19 Peruvian piscos.

Sanchez, who grew up outside Lima, Peru, loves to teach guests about the long history of pisco in San Francisco, but he’s even more eager for them to taste the stuff. “When you try a pisco sour or a pisco punch, you love it,” he says. “It’s a nice and easy way to be introduced.”

The best of the pisco options are well-executed takes on traditional drinks. The Maracuyá Sour, topped with foamy egg white, is bracing and aromatic. An addition of passion fruit boosts the floral character of the pisco itself.

The Principal’s Punch, served on the rocks, is refreshing and subtly tropical. Frothy pineapple and almond- and clove-tinged falernum enrich the drink’s creamy texture; Chartreuse’s cousin, genepy, delicately amplifies the herbal notes. It’s the sort of cocktail that anyone who’s ever had a margarita will enjoy. (You wish the drinks at your wedding were this good.) And while the cocktail doesn’t really push the envelope, pisco’s heady side is in the spotlight here in a way that we rarely see. The subtleties of the cocktail serve their spirit master well.

Sanchez has a soft spot for whiskey, too. My favorite cocktail on the list, Bertha and the Smoke, is a play on the old fashioned. Early in the day, before the fire in the Bertha-brand oven gets too hot, Sanchez slides a saucepan full of Angostura, orange and allspice bitters into the first curls of smoke. Stirred with gomme syrup and high-proof Rittenhouse rye, the drink has a warm, mellow flavor while retaining just a bit of rye’s peppery bite. While putting the cocktail together, Sanchez upturns the serving glass over a piece of smoldering wood to capture a bit more smoke. You smell a hearth at first sip, and then you don’t.

The stand-alone woodburning oven cooks seafood — and spices for the Bertha and the Smoke.

Photo: Rosa Furneaux / Special to The Chronicle

It’s also fun to linger over the Mr. Kotter, described by our waiter as “basically a margarita” served on a big ice cube that’s stained deep red with hibiscus. Did the melting cube add a touch more tannin, a bit more floral character to the basic lime, dry curaçao and Tequila combo? I’m not sure, really, but it made for a good show (and a reminder to slow down a bit. This gig is a marathon, not a sprint).

Still, as I sipped my way around the School Night menu, I found myself looking for an element of risk — some new, surprising flavor that would compel me to return here over all the other exciting bars around town. Perhaps the most daring option was a Fernet Gancia-laced whiskey sour called the Hierba Buena, served in a tall glass on pebbled ice. But if you close your eyes, it’s familiar: a very tart and minty lemonade, shaken with rye. On a hot day, it will happily quench your thirst, and you’re spared the embarrassment of mint bits in your teeth.

But in San Francisco, and in a neighborhood like Dogpatch that’s teeming with good bars these days, is good good enough? Especially if you’re trying to get people to come out drinking on a Monday?

Maggie Hoffman is the author of “The One-Bottle Cocktail: More than 80 Recipes With Fresh Ingredients and a Single Spirit” (Ten Speed). Twitter: @maggiejhoffman Email: food@sfchronicle.com”

More Information

Drinking in Dogpatch

Three of Dogpatch’s best drinking destinations are located just steps from each other, at Third and 20th streets.

Third Rail: This dark, intimate bar is ideal for a date, with stellar cocktails (and an odd but delicious collection of jerky, both meat and vegetable-based). I’m partial to Jeff Lyon’s bourbon and oloroso Sherry-based Bone Machine ($13), but the menu is full of exciting offerings. 628 20th St.

Sea Star: Neighbors stop by for beers and shots at this casual watering hole, but the cocktails, created by Bar Star Alicia Walton, are well-made, too. The mezcal- and amaro-based Samson’s Delilah ($11) beautifully balances its bitter, tart and savory sides. 2289 Third St.